Sciencemadness Discussion Board

indole from solvent extraction of feces

nikotyna1939 - 29-1-2019 at 18:40

recently i decided to soak feces in toluene for making indole,
i want to know what is the percentage of indole do i get from the filtered and evaporated toluene .
also i need indole for making naturally derived plant hormone like Indole-3-butyric acid

Ubya - 30-1-2019 at 01:34

indole has a concentration of about 10 μg/g in feces( https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0301622693...) i wouldn't bother this nasty experiment. plus soaking shit in toluene is not very selective, every kind of fat or non polar compound is going to be extracted, so you would need a good way to separate your indole from that mess.

a post has already been written about this
http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=3918

[Edited on 30-1-2019 by Ubya]

wg48 - 30-1-2019 at 04:53

Quote: Originally posted by Ubya  
indole has a concentration of about 10 μg/g in feces( https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0301622693...) i wouldn't bother this nasty experiment. plus soaking shit in toluene is not very selective, every kind of fat or non polar compound is going to be extracted, so you would need a good way to separate your indole from that mess.

a post has already been written about this
http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=3918

[Edited on 30-1-2019 by Ubya]


So they will need literally a ton of poop to extract about one gram of indole.

That assumes 0.5kg per load and a 50% yield (probably 10% or less is more realistic). One load contains 5mg with a 10% to 50% yield that's 0.5mg to 2.5mg of indole. So it would require 400 to 2000 loads or approximately a ton of faeces for one gram of indole.

For a follow on experiment they can extract radium from a ton of uranium ore.

Thinking about it if they put the process on YouTube they may get get a ton of views and make some money from it LOL

mayko - 30-1-2019 at 07:59

Quote: Originally posted by nikotyna1939  
recently i decided to soak feces in toluene


I'm sorry to hear that.

unionised - 30-1-2019 at 14:14

Quote: Originally posted by wg48  
...

For a follow on experiment they can extract radium from a ton of uranium ore.
...

That's a much easier experiment (albeit, not on a ton scale).

clearly_not_atara - 30-1-2019 at 18:26

this is unironically awesome if it works but

where

did you get the idea that there was even a useful amount of indole in feces to extract? it says here that indole is present at 0.004% w/w in feces:

http://www.jbc.org/content/32/1/17.full.pdf

i infer you'd need to process about 25 kg of shit to get a gram of indole. maybe you can increase the amount of indole in your feces by stuffing your face with pumpkin seeds? but then why not just extract tryptophan with pumpkin seeds and forget about using the human digestive system?

oberkarteufel - 31-1-2019 at 03:18

Quote: Originally posted by clearly_not_atara  
but

where

did you get the idea that there was even a useful amount of indole in feces to extract?


Maybe OP found the information that indole is one of the compunds responsible for the smell of feces. Strong odour = lots of indole...! Well, no. Plus, dozens of other smelly compounds.

Herr Haber - 31-1-2019 at 04:05

Many here consider Hennig Brand a hero.

So why not let OP play with a ton of shit ? :D

zed - 1-2-2019 at 17:01

Well, we did discuss making Indole Butyric Acid, about a year ago. http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=74839

As for indole itself..... Usable amounts could be more easily synthesized by other methods.

Unless of course, you are in an industrial disposal type situation. Wherein you have vast stores of feces, that must be processed and disposed of in some manner. And, extracting something useful from the dreck, helps to pay for the process.

Heh, heh. As I recall it: that's where a common pain killer, perhaps Acetaminophen, came from. Not from poop of course. But, the starting material was waste from another chemical process. Can't just throw it all away. Gotta squeeze every possible dollar out of it first. Business!

[Edited on 2-2-2019 by zed]